9:26 AM Dec 8, 1995

UNITED STATES: CAMPAIGN AGAINST 'SWEATSHOP' PRODUCTS

New York, Dec 6 (GIN-IPS/Jennie Bauduy) -- Bundled in thick winter coats, 18-year-old Judith Viera and 16-year-old Lesly Rodriguez huddled against each other outside the GAP clothing store. Around them, hundreds of protesters gathered on 34th street and Broadway, chanting "Shame on the GAP!"

"I'm from Honduras," said Rodriguez through an interpreter to the television cameras and microphones thrust in her face. "I worked in a plant making sweaters for Liz Claiborne. In this plant where I worked there are many young girls working under very bad conditions."

The protest, held last week outside the GAP store in Manhattan's Herald Square, was organised by a coalition of groups and led by the National Labor Committee (NLC), a workers' rights group. Organisers said they wanted to spotlight this particular company's dealings with sweatshops to draw national attention to the rise of illegal sweatshops. The GAP is just one company among many, organisers said.

Rodriguez, and Viera from El Salvador, have both spent years in sweatshops producing clothes sold in the United States. Most workers in these sweatshops are women, many are teenage girls like Viera and Rodriguez.

Until she was fired for trying to organise a union, Viera said she worked more than 70 hours a week making clothes for the GAP, earning 43 dollars a week at the Mandarin factory in El Salvador. For every 20-dollar GAP shirt she cut, Viera made 18 cents.

Rodriguez worked in a factory making sweaters for Liz Claiborne since she was 13. She said she often worked as many as 14 hours a day under appalling working conditions.

Several months ago, the NLC, together with human rights investigators, visited the Mandarin assembly plant in El Salvador to collect evidence about alleged abuses of women workers including beatings, and sexual harassment. The group proceeded to mount a national campaign claiming that "the GAP has been covering up abusive sweatshop conditions in El Salvador."

The Mandarin International factory produces clothing for Eddie Bauer, J.C. Penney, J. Crew, Liz Claiborne, and Casual Corner.

"This is a campaign not against the GAP, but against sweatshops, and we are going to take it from one retailer to another," said Nick Unger of the Union of Needletrade, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE).

"Sweatshops is not an El Salvador problem -- it's a worldwide problem. It's a California problem. It's a 38th street and 8th Avenue problem," said Unger who blamed the movement of free-trade zones, which encourages companies to shop for the cheapest wages and the most lax labor regulations, for what he said is a steady decline in the living conditions of workers worldwide.

[The US trade policy of preferential treatment for 'outward processing' encourages such sweatshop labour, according to trade observers in Geneva. The US administrations slaps quotas on these countries on their exports of clothing made of their own or imported fabrics of cheaper origin, while granting higher quotas to them for exports under US 'outward processing' schemes. These schemes enable US manufacturers, to export the semi-made or cut goods for labour-intensive further processing at their sub-contracting outlets or subsidiaries, and reimport them into the US paying duty only on value added.]

"The number of sweatshops in the United States is increasing. The amount of work in the sweatshops is increasing. The amount of folks who are working below minimum wage is increasing," said Unger.

In response to the nationwide campaign, the GAP, which initially denied the abuse charges at the Mandarin plant, recently announced that, "faced with these extreme and conflicting reports," it will no longer contract out work to Mandarin.

"They are leaving the country and doing us even more damage," said Viera of El Salvador. "We need these jobs, but not under these conditions."

Charles Kernaghan, NLC's executive director, called the GAP retreat from El Salvador, and the corresponding lay-offs of nearly 500 workers at Mandarin, "the worst-case scenario".

"They made $38 million last month off the backs of these workers," said Kernaghan, referring to the GAP's profits in November. "The GAP could afford to help these women." Kernaghan accused the GAP of trying to punish workers by withdrawing and to drive home the message that if they organise, they will lose their jobs.

Organisers say they have a message of their own for big companies. They warn that these companies are responsible for the working conditions under which their products are produced.

Unger said: "This is not the way society is supposed to be -- a six- or seven-year-old child sews a soccer ball in Pakistan for pennies an hour, and the company whose balls they are, Adidas, can say, 'We're not responsible'."